Taste of Home - Taste of Home Favorites—25th Anniversary Edition

Pictured on cover: Illustration on cover: Shawna Kirsch Illustrations throughout book: Shutterstock A.U Design; Wiktoria Matynia 2018 RDA Enthusiast Brands, LLC 1610 N. 2nd St., Suite 102, Milwaukee WI 53212-3906 International Standard Book Number: 978-1-6176-5763-4 All rights reserved. Taste of Home is a registered trademark of RDA Enthusiast Brands, LLC.

Thank goodness for Taste of Home . Taking the position as Chief Content Officer meant digging into the history of Taste of Home and learning about the brands genesis. It meant getting to know the community of Field Editors and the spirit of sharing that is at the heart of Taste of Home . And it offered an opportunity to work with a wonderful, dedicated and warm group of editors, art directors, photographers and Test Kitchen cooks and food stylists. It meant a love of food was rekindled. And a purpose revealed.

Taste of Home celebrates the joy of a home-cooked meal. Of beloved recipes handed down through generations and shared generously among a community of individuals who love to cook for their families and friends. In essence, Taste of Home is real food. Real ingredients. Real human connection. And real love.

Since joining Taste of Home , I find myself often thinking about my beloved grandma. Grandma and I were particularly close, and Id become positively giddy whenever my dad would tell me of one of her upcoming visits. You see, Mom was busy dealing with five rambunctious kids, all while maintaining a householdcleaning and ironing and darning and packing lunches. And in those days, men in the kitchen were practically unheard ofbesides, Dad juggled three jobs to make ends meet. So when Grandma came to town, we kids would anxiously wait for her undivided attentionand her mystical, magical, mythical recipe box. For it was this small boxand her culinary skillsthat gave us her famous sauerbraten and German potato salad, which had us greedily asking for seconds and thirds.

And when we thought we were full, wed still dig in to Grandmas homemade chocolate cake as if we hadnt eaten in months. She even made spaghetti sauce from scratch, which was mind-boggling to us and my mother, whose time-starved method was opening a can of the packaged stuff. To say that Grandma was an amazing cook is an understatement. But back then, it never crossed my mind to ask her for her recipes. And when Grandma passed away, my parents never thought to look for that magical recipe box when settling her estate. Had Grandma been alive when Taste of Home launched back in 1993, Im sure she would have been an original subscriber.

And Im sure those delicious dishes from my childhood would be in our expansive recipe database, which clearly holds so much love and history from readers. Now, to me, food is about people. Sharing. Togetherness. Love. Joy.

Its about honoring traditions. Appreciating the wonders of a hot-from-the-oven meal. The incredible aroma that permeates a home when theres a roast roasting, and the promise of laughter and smiles from the first bite to the lastwhen plates are empty and hearts are full. Thats Taste of Home a bright beacon that points to those we love. And its changed the way I think about food. Taste of Home now means family dinners at home with my husband and daughter.

It means cooking tasty dishes together, setting aside smartphones and sitting down to good food and good conversation that makes time stop. So in the spirit of the passion shown by our current and original 1,000 home cooks, we share this cookbook. Each chapter is filled with your best recipes of the past two and a half decades, as well as the stories that bring them to life. Thank you, Taste of Home readers, for sharing this part of your world with usand for helping to create a world of love through down-home and delicious foods. Were truly honored. Beth Tomkiw Chief Content Officer Taste of Home

25 YEARS:

A LOOK BACK AT OUR

HISTORY

Sometimes a secret is too goodtoo tantalizing, too deliciousto keep to yourself.

S ometimes a dish is just too tasty not to share. It was this idea that became the premise behind Taste of Home back in 1992, when editors and staff of what was then Reiman Publications met to brainstorm potential new offerings. The company already had successfully mined rural markets with titles like Country Woman . Devoted to farm life and all things that would appeal to rural female readers, Country Woman also featured a heaping helping of features on cooking. And people couldnt get enough. At that time, people wanted more (recipes) than we could allot in our magazines, says Mary Beth Jung, the founding food editor of Taste of Home .

I went to my boss and said we should do a food magazinebecause it was a natural (extension). And thats where the secret-sharing began. Seems that the readers of the various publications loved to exchange their family recipes and submitted them in droves. And this sparked an idea.

MORE THAN RECIPES

In his business memoir, I Could Write a Book , company founder Roy Reiman envisioned something special for his newest magazine. We decided this new one would be more than just a food magazine; it would be a people magazine as well, he wrote.

Instead of simply running a series of recipes, like most other food magazines do, we would give the story behind each recipe; we would tell how This recipe came from my Aunt Helen, who made it every time I visited her house, and Helen in turn got it from her mother, who lived on a ranch in Montana. This would add meaning and appeal to each recipe; wed make these recipes come alive by explaining their roots. The staff decided to use only recipes and stories from readerspractically inventing the publishing worlds concept of user-generated content. And so the notion of sharing secretsthose closely kept family recipes that were handed down from generation to generationbecame a driving force for the new publication, Taste of Home , while shining a spotlight on the cooks themselves and the stories they had to tell. Editors sat down to plot out the editorial calendar, aiming for a 1993 launch and tapping the unpublished recipes already submitted by readers for the first issue. To differentiate it from other magazines, the staff decided to use only recipes and stories from readerspractically inventing the publishing worlds concept of user-generated content.